The Sad Un-Garden

Yesterday, I shared with you a little ironing board I created from a t.v. table.  When that project was complete, I came in to work on a pen-pal basket for my daughter.  So many times my daughter writes letters to her precious little pen-pal and it takes me forever to get them in the mail simply because I keep forgetting to put an address on the envelope and put it in the mail.  It finally occurred to me to make a basket of supplies for her to prepare her own letters to go in the mail.  I am currently without a computer that works with my printer, so I just printed some labels by hand and added them to a small basket with a few envelopes and stamps.  Now, addressing and stamping an envelope is as easy as putting on two stickers!  Hopefully, now, her sweet pen-pal won't have to wait so long between letters- at least on my part!

After finishing that project, our family headed out of town to run a few errands.  Upon visiting a garden center, I simply could not resist the urge to buy tomato plants and a basil plant.  The thought of going through the summer here in the south without my own tomatoes was killing me!  What true southerner does that???  I didn't have a clue what I would do with them when I got home, but I just had to have them!  I looked at a few pots, but I couldn't justify spending $20 a pot for tomato plants I didn't have to have.  I decided I was just going to have to make a garden.  Do you ever feel sad over the appearance of your garden?  Well, I can just about guarantee your garden looks better than mine.  I know because mine isn't really a garden at all.  Since last summer I have begged for raised beds.  I have begged for tilled ground.  I have begged for the tiller to be cranked so I could try till up the ground myself and prepare it for planting...something, anything...just something somewhere where I could plant something!  Sigh....Planting season has found me with no place to plant my new tomato and basil plants or the little seedlings I have babied for weeks.  Now, you have to understand I don't have a green thumb whatsoever!  I have the worst brown thumb you have ever seen.  I am doing good to keep the hair growing on my head!  For me to have taken seeds from a vegetable I ate and to have grown actual plants was nothing short of a miracle!  I simply could not let my plants, bought or grown myself, sit and die.  With my son's tiny little trowel in my hand, I picked a spot in my backyard and started digging a hole.  There!  There is where my garden found itself.  No tilling and turning of soil, no soil amendments.  Nothing but a hole dug in the weeds.  Then another hole and another hole, and another hole until I had ten tomato plants, two garlic plants, a basil plant, and twenty one pepper plants in their new home in the weedy plot of ground I deemed a garden.  I planted the vegetables after I planted the ten snapdragons I started from seeds in an appropriate place in the flower beds.  My husband did feel sorry for me when I got down to the last few pepper plants and stabbed myself with the trowel.  He pulled out the mattock and dug the last few holes so I could more quickly get the rest of the plants in the ground.  That was a good thing since it was getting dark and he was grilling a delicious steak!  This is what I ended up with.  *Warning!  The following images may be disturbing to some viewers.  Viewer discretion is advised!*

What's that you said?  You can't see the plants?  Don't feel bad.  You are not alone.  It takes me a few minutes to find them too!  :)  Look a little closer.

There is the basil, and if you look carefully, you may be able to see a couple of tomato plants.

It's sad.  I know.  Painful actually.  I warned you, though!  Here.  Take a peek at a few of the peppers, and the torture will be over.

Anybody want to come get rid of weeds?  :)

Please share your garden success with me!  I would love to see them or at least hear about them!  Even if mine can't be beautiful, I can appreciate those that are!  It gives me hope for next year!

Until we meet again, may you be blessed!